They’re cleaning house!
A Williamsburg vintage emporium has closed one of its two outlets after the landlord raised the rent. Junk shuttered its sprawling, overpacked store on N. Ninth Street last week and will instead open a well-organized housewares shop on Union Avenue, which should be a better fit for the neighborhood’s new character, said the store’s manager.
“The neighborhood has changed completely, and there is not a place for a store like ours anymore,” said Danny Orama, who is still manager of the remaining Junk store on Driggs Avenue between N. Sixth and N. Seventh streets.
The Junk store on N. Ninth, like its sister store on Driggs Avenue, was overflowing with old suitcases, chairs, typewriters, mirrors, rugs, mannequins, mediocre artwork, and all manner of flea-market detritus. Vintage stores still have cachet in Bushwick, where there are several, but with rents in Williamsburg skyrocketing, Junk was not the best use of cavernous spaces, said Orama.
The N. Ninth Street location opened 11 years ago, and the Driggs Avenue shop opened in 2011.
Orama declined to say how much the landlord wanted to raise the rent or how much the rent will be in the new shop.
The new store on Union Avenue will open in mid-May, he said.
